After retiring as a university administrator, Northern Michigan University alumnus and former Wildcat football player Jim Mansfield found fulfillment in his longtime volunteer role as a blood courier in Spokane, Wash. He was honored last year with a President's Lifetime Achievement Award, signed by Joe Biden, for his “7,304 hours of service to this nation.” He also received every award bestowed by his local blood center for his efforts.
Mansfield logged 335,000 miles behind the wheel making blood deliveries to rural hospitals and served six years as chair of blood drives that netted enough blood to save 4,000 lives.
“My definition of service is making a difference in people's lives,” he said in accepting the Alumni Service-Community Award at NMU's Homecoming. “I would ask that if you want to make a difference in someone's life, call your local blood center and sign up to donate. Only 4% of the people in the country who are eligible to give blood give it. There's a unit of blood used in a hospital every two minutes. It's so bad that it's almost at a triage situation where if you need blood, they might have to give it to someone else who needs it more than you.
“What I find most amazing about working with blood is that there is no discrimination,” he stated in a previous news article on his volunteer service. “It doesn't care who you are, what your age is, what your color or ethnicity is, or your religion. Everybody uses blood. To me, that is so satisfying to help so many people.”
Mansfield earned a bachelor of science in physical education from NMU in 1961 and a master of arts in education in 1964. He was a four-year defensive tackle on the football team.
“I love Northern because it gave me the tools to succeed at what I did, though it's one of those things you don't realize when it's actually happening, only afterward,” he said at the Sept. 20 Homecoming alumni awards luncheon. “I also love Marquette, which gave me my lovely bride, Charlotte Brainerd Mansfield [a 1960 NMU grad]. We met at the former Shiras Pool out at Presque Isle Park. She was a lifeguard out in the middle of the pool in a little rowing boat, and I swam out, hung on the back of the boat and started flirting with her. That's how we first met. Three years later, we got married, and last month we celebrated our 64th anniversary.”
For the bulk of Mansfield's 38-year career in higher education, the couple lived in Spokane, where he served as dean of admissions at Gonzaga University from 1969-87. They later returned to the city after Jim retired from the University of Wyoming as director of admission and enrollment management.
“I remember driving on Northern's campus in 2011,” he told luncheon attendees. “This car pulled up alongside of me and the driver said, ‘Pull over.” I wondered what I did—whether I ran a stop sign or something. The gentleman got out of his car and it's [former NMU President] Les Wong. He asked me why I had a Northern Michigan University sticker on the right side of my vehicle and a Gonzaga University sticker on the left side. I told him I went to Northern and I was the dean of admissions at Gonzaga. Then he invited me to a local restaurant to meet his family. When we walked in, he said, ‘This is the man who admitted me to Gonzaga University as a freshman.' I made a difference in Les Wong's life. I know that because he told me I did, which was very, very special.”
Mansfield did not have to search hard or long for a post-retirement volunteer opportunity; it found him through an interaction with an electrician doing wiring on his home. The electrician mentioned that he was serving as a blood courier in his free time and volunteered to take Mansfield on a run to hospitals.
“And the rest was history,” said Mansfield, who can't donate blood himself because of blood-thinning medication he's prescribed, but wanted to help in some way. “I got tapped on my shoulder by God, and he said, ‘This is what you're going to do.'”
Mansfield drove for the blood center for 24 years from 1999-2023.
NMU Alumni Relations invites nominations for its annual awards program. For more information, visit nmu.edu/alumni/awards, email alumni@nmu.edu or call 906-227-2610.